People have doubted whether or not this yellow liquor is the poison, and the reason has been, that animals who had tasted it did not die as when bitten, but this reason does not hold in modern physics. We know why the saliva of a mad dog has been given to animals and has not affected them; and a German physician was bold enough to distil the pus, or putrid matter, flowing from the ulcer of a person infected by the plague, and taste it afterwards without bad consequences; so that it is clear the poison has no activity, till through some sore or wound it is admitted into circulation. Again, the tooth itself, divested of that poison, has as little effect. The viper deprived of his canine teeth, an operation very easily performed, bites without any fatal consequence with the others; and many instances there have been of mad dogs having bit people cloathed in coarse woollen stuff, which had so far cleaned the teeth of the saliva in passing through it, as not to have left the smallest inflammation after the wound.

I forbear to fatigue the reader by longer insisting upon this subject. A long dissertation would remain upon the incantation of serpents. There is no doubt of its reality. The scriptures are full of it. All that have been in Egypt have seen as many different instances as they chose. Some have doubted that it was a trick, and that the animals so handled had been first trained, and then disarmed of their power of hurting; and fond of the discovery, they have rested themselves upon it, without experiment, in the face of all antiquity. But I will not hesitate to aver, that I have seen at Cairo (and this may be seen daily without trouble or expence) a man who came from above the catacombs, where the pits of the mummy birds are kept, who has taken a Cerastes with his naked hand from a number of others lying at the bottom of the tub, has put it upon his bare head, covered it with the common red cap he wears, then taken it out, put it in his breast, and tied it about his neck like a necklace; after which it has been applied to a hen, and bit it, which has died in a few minutes; and, to complete the experiment, the man has taken it by the neck, and beginning at his tail, has ate it as one would do a carrot or a stock of celery, without any seeming repugnance.

We know from history, that where any country has been remarkably infested with serpents, there the people have been screened by this secret. The Psylli and Marmarides of old undoubtedly were defended in this manner,

Ad Quorum cantus mites Jacuére Cerastæ.
Sil. Ital. lib. iii.

To leave ancient history, I can myself vouch, that all the black people in the kingdom of Sennaar, whether Funge or Nuba, are perfectly armed against the bite of either scorpion or viper. They take the Cerastes in their hands at all times, put them in their bosoms, and throw them to one another as children do apples or balls, without having irritated them, by this usage so much as to bite. The Arabs have not this secret naturally, but from their infancy they acquire an exemption from the mortal consequences attending the bite of these animals, by chawing a certain root, and washing themselves (it is not anointing) with an infusion of certain plants in water.

One day when I was with the brother of Shekh Adelan, prime minister of Sennaar, a slave of his brought a Cerastes which he had just then taken out of a hole, and was using it with every sort of familiarity. I told him my suspicion that the teeth had been drawn, but he assured me they were not, as did his master Kittou, who took it from him, wound it round his arm, and at my desire ordered the servant to carry it home with me. I took a chicken by the neck, and made it flutter before him; his seeming indifference left him, and he bit it with great signs of anger, the chicken died almost immediately; I say his seeming indifference, for I constantly observed, that however lively the viper was before, upon being seized by any of these barbarians he seemed as if taken with sickness and feebleness, frequently shut his eyes, and never turned his mouth towards the arm of the person that held him. I asked Kittou how they came to be exempted from this mischief? he said, they were born so, and so said the grave and respectable men among them. Many of the lighter and lower sort talked of enchantments by words and by writing, but they all knew how to prepare any person by medicine, which were decoctions of herbs and roots.

I have seen many thus armed for a season do pretty much the same feats as those that possessed the exemption naturally, the drugs were given me, and I several times armed myself, as I thought, resolved to try the experiment, but my heart always failed me when I came to the trial; because among these wretched people it was a pretence they might very probably have sheltered themselves under, that I was a Christian, that therefore it had no effect upon me. I have still remaining by me a small quantity of this root, but never had an opportunity of trying the experiment.

The reader will attend to the horn which is placed over the eye in the manner I have given the figure of it, it is fluted, and has four divisions. He will likewise observe the tooth as viewed through a glass. He may suppose the black represents a painter’s pallet, for the easier discerning the white tooth, which could not otherwise appear distinctly upon the white paper.

Binny.